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Southwestern Historical Quarterly

(p. 4) defined so broadly as to include virtually any innovator at any time, butonce past the introduction, he mercifully drops this idea to delve into theSpindletop boomer's world, a world of fortunes won and lost overnight, of fiercefires and poison gas, of horrific accidents and heedless shootings. Readers of theclassic Spindletop works, James A. Clark and Michael T. Halbouty's Spindletopand Boatright and Owens's Tales from the Derrick Floor, will recognize familiarthemes here. In fact, Spellman frequently quotes lengthy passages from the for-mer work, but he offers far more lively particulars than previous authors. This isespecially noticeable in his coverage of "victimless" crime; what he presents onprostitution, one of the most illuminating parts of the book, offers a graphic il-lustration of how brutal this part of boomtime life was. If some of the particularsare new, however, the mud and blood perspective is highly traditional. As Spell-man puts it, "as long as the oil flowed from under Patillo Higgins's salt dome,the blood and sweat poured out across the fields and streets and saloon floors"(p. 113). Had Spellman compared local criminal court and/or death recordsagainst what may be honest recollection or may just be tall tales, that might haveled to a new story.For Christine Moor Sanders, the "untold story" of Spindletop consists primari-ly of debunking the usual view that Patillo Higgins was the prime mover behindthe Spindletop discovery. As she presents it, other persons, most notably hergreat grandfather George Washington O'Brien, were interested in oil at Spindle-top long before Higgins, and Higgins was a pushy, impecunious promoter andblowhard who had little to do with the discovery; she is even skeptical that Hig-gins was responsible for initially contacting Anthony Lucas. Also "untold" is thestory of the Gladys City Oil, Gas & Manufacturing Company, in which theO'Briens were majority stockholders. Here Sanders had company records as aresource. Unfortunately, like Spellman only on a grander scale, Sanders oftenpresents chunks of evidence-affidavits, meeting minutes, newspaper stories-without offering the context and interpretation that would produce narrative.The result is difficult to track, and for that reason, the story of the Gladys Citycompany remains untold. Ironically, the course of George WashingtonO'Brien's own fortunes during and after the boom also remains obscure. In theend, Sanders's work will be most useful to those interested in local lore and thegenealogy of the O'Brien and allied families.Petroleum industry scholars will notice that both authors' works contain avoid-able clangers. For example, for Spellman, John D. Rockefeller's brother Frankbecomes "Flagler Rockefeller" (p. 25), and Sanders has oil activity "heightened"in New England, the Dakotas, and "various Indian Territories" in the 188os (p.49). Such gaffes demonstrate that, however colorful the raw material, authorsneed to master the broader industry context when they tell the Spindletop story.Unzverszty of Texas of the Permian Basin Diana Davids OlienBalcones Heights: A Crossroads of San Antonio. By Lewis F. Fisher. (San Antonio:Maverick Publishing Co., 1999. Pp. 57. Notes, index. ISBN 0-9651507-7-1.$1o.oo, paper.)Lewis F. Fisher has written a book about the history of Balcones Heights, a city